When I go, I want to wake up and find myself
flying through the universe filled with shining
stars and beautiful colors. I want everything to
be peaceful and quiet. I think the afterlife
should be a long rest. A long rest that we all look
forward to rather than dread. Death would not be so scary if we all knew there was a beautiful, quiet haven
to go to.

It's not what you know that makes
you smart, it's knowing what you don't know.

There is no way to verify what actually happens so the only justified answer to the question is "I have no idea." All one can do is speculate, and what I think and want to happen is absolutely nothing. Infinite sleep.

Talk to the dead... touchy... I don't think you can always talk to whoever you want, but if astral travel is possible, if there are other planes of existence, if time and space are made up stuff, why couldn't you? Maybe for the dead it's like we're in a coma. They are there, talking to us, we're lying there on the gurney, the ghosts ask the doctor "Will she hear me?" The doctor says "Nobody really knows".

"I'm not down here for your money, I'm not down here for you love, I'm not down here for your love or money, I'm down here for your soul"

Is it even possible to find material evidence for that which is supposedly immaterial? If the brain no longer allows particular faculties to be used, due to illness or damage, does that prove consciousness does not exist beyond the machinations of the brain, or does it simply mean that consciousness is no longer able to interact with those bodily functions?

I would say that whatever person I think I may be, whatever personality or identity that seems to be 'me', this would no longer exist when I die. At the same time, however, I would say that all these imaginary constructions that I refer to as 'me' are not what they seem in the first place; they are simply ideas and beliefs to which I have become attached, and which heighten the apparent difference between myself and others. This difference, however, is not the highest reality of our being, which in fact is the pure undifferentiated awareness that each and every one of us were born into this world with. In that moment, this body was born, but not this 'self'. This self is merely a figment of my imagination, and so I was never born, and therefore I can never die.

Whether consciousness exists beyond death or not, either way it will not be 'me'.

luciditee wrote:I would say that whatever person I think I may be, whatever personality or identity that seems to be 'me', this would no longer exist when I die. At the same time, however, I would say that all these imaginary constructions that I refer to as 'me' are not what they seem in the first place; they are simply ideas and beliefs to which I have become attached, and which heighten the apparent difference between myself and others. This difference, however, is not the highest reality of our being, which in fact is the pure undifferentiated awareness that each and every one of us were born into this world with. In that moment, this body was born, but not this 'self'. This self is merely a figment of my imagination, and so I was never born, and therefore I can never die.

luciditee, that is a good difference to point out. We can define our "selves" in such a fundamental way that we see ourselves as something more universal than our individual body alone. Nonetheless, when most people ask, "what happens when we die," they just mean the same old individual version of 'self' that most people mean when they say it. Generally speaking, they are just referring to the personality and information stored in their brains.

Many people do have wiser views, exemplified by statements such as, "I will live on through my children," or "I will live on through my work," or so on.

pjkeeley wrote:

thats untrue people called mediums talk to the dead

No, people called mediums CLAIM to talk to the dead... big difference!

Amen. And the "mediums" I've seen aren't even that convincing.

About that topic, did any of you ever see the South Park episode where they mock John Edwards. It's hilarious, and it does a great job at explaining how easily people are fooled by simple tricks by other people pretending to talk to the dead.